Top 10 Albums of 2012

Welcome to my top 10 albums of 2012. Before I start, I want to make everyone aware of my eclectic musical tastes. I listen to albums from a wide array of genres. The list below isn't just confined to any single type of music. You should also keep in mind when reading this that it is truly "My List". These are my opinions, and while I do respect yours. Be prepared to present a good valid argument to back up your opinions if you choose to present them. Also, please consider the fact that I may not have heard your favorite album yet, so all listening suggestions left as comments will be taken under consideration!

NYCC: Tera Patrick and Adrianne Curry

We had the opportunity to shoot and interview both Tera Patrick and Adrianne Curry at New York Comic Con 2012. Both interviews turned out to be a fun experience, and we had a blast conducting them. Courtesy of the "World From the Master" blog, I am re-posting the interviews I filmed, along with several of photographs I shot. Special Thanks to Master Gio for letting me be a part of this!

CLIPPED!

Now available for viewing online, it's the Guts Guts Guts Guts produced short film of Clipped, which I was involved in. It was Nominated for best editing by Project Twenty1.

2012 New York Comic Con Cosplay Photos

99% of the photos I took at 2012 NYCC are now available for viewing on Flickr. My cosplay photos can be seen at the following link:

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCQ2hue

And My Toy Photos can be seen here:

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCA9WYy

If you're the subject of one of my photos and like it, drop me a line and I'll gladly send you the high resolution file. So many cosplayers comment on my photos, and yet I can't find a a way to contact them back and send the photos. For example, the woman who was dressed as Tron last year at NYCC. She said I took the best photo of her because it was early on and her cosplay was completely intact. I found her tumblr, but it had no contact info on it. If you read this, e-mail me and I'll send you the photo!

If you really like photography and design work featured on this website, feel free to follow me on Twitter @NegativePop, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NegativePop

And on a final note, I've been contributing my photography and video expertise to the "Words From the Master" blog. I've known Gio for a very long time, and I'm excited to be teaming up with him and BAS Design on a lot of projects of late, so make sure to follow his awesome blog!

Since my mom's passing, I've been inspired to write a lot more, take more photographs, and focus on the things I enjoy most in life. I hope I can continue to capitalize on this momentum. I have a lot of fun projects planned in the future, so continue to watch this space!

My Final thoughts on 2012 New York Comic Con

 

While this year's New York Comic Con (NYCC) wasn't exactly a pleasant experience for me, mainly due to the family emergency that took center stage that weekend, the overall experience I had during my limited time there proved to be greatly improved from the year prior. The organizers at NYCC corrected several of the previous year's issues that everyone griped over. While there's still enough to complain about, a lot of the lingering issues can be attributed to the Javits Center itself and not NYCC. Here is a list of what I felt the organizers of Comic Con did right.

• Tighter Security and Better Ticket Collection: Security was strict with both ticket and non-ticket holders this year. If you didn't have a badge, there was no way for you to gain entry. Too many non-ticket holders were able to loiter around in the entry halls of the Javits Center last year. Badges were not inspected until you walked up to the main exhibition hall. This played a big hand in keeping rift raft and freeloaders away. While I could care less if someone is sneaking into the place, it is a slap in the face to the people who went out of their way and spent top dollar to buy a ticket, or wasted hours filling out a press application.


• More Coat Check Options: The Javits Center opened up a few more coat check areas this year. This made it extremely easy to get in and out as quick as possible. However, the main coat check across from Starbucks still had a long wait since many people were unaware that there was more than one coat check.  


• The Banning of Rolling Suitcases and Strollers: I can't even begin to count the number of times I almost killed myself last year by tripping over someone's rolling suitcase, or how many babies were almost crushed to death as I tripped over the wheels of their strollers. Let's face it, every die hard fanboy loves to bring a suitcase full of comic so that they can get every issue they owned signed by their favorite creator. It makes sense since NYCC may be the only opportunity they have to meet their all-time favorite creator, but not in near-fire-hazard conditions. On the most attended day of the convention, Saturday, thousands of people are crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in the exhibit halls of the Javits Center. There's no room to be dodging suitcases and strollers in that environment.
  
  
• The Relocation of Artist Alley: NYCC made better use of the Javits Center's space. Moving Artist Alley to Javits Center North was a great idea. Sure, it took a while for people to realize where exactly Artist Alley was located, but once they did, business began booming. Last year, the North Hall was used primarily as a lounge and partial celebrity autograph area. It was virtually empty at times, and a complete waste of space
  
  
• Phone Charging Stations: The Javits Center is known for having the worse phone reception in all of New York City. Phone batteries die quickly when trying to find a non-existing signal. Luckily everyone was able to recharge their phones while sitting down and recharging themselves and several of the Davinci's Demons sponsored charging stations. The sponsor also sprung for 4 hours of free wifi service within the walls of Artist Alley. If there's one major gripe everyone has, it's that attendees and exhibitors alike need to pay an overpriced fee for wifi at the Expo Center. How can you not allow free wifi access to anyone conducting business inside the  Javits Center!? 

While many people still have their gripes towards comic con and how it was being run, the 2012 experience was vastly improved. A few tweaks by NYCC organizers went a long way in making the con a lot more pleasant. Let's hope they continue to strive towards an even greater fan friendly experience, while continuing to address some of the other lingering annoying issues. With the NYCC 2012 behind us, I'm greatly looking forward to next year's event. Let the countdown begin!

New York Comic Con 2012: Toys, Statues, & Video Games by Alan Camuto

My time at comic con was cut short this year due to a personal emergency. Those of you who know me know exactly what happened.  It has been very difficult for me. Time has been moving both fast and slow. Even though we're only a week and half removed from comic con (NYCC), it feels like it took place months ago. During my limited time at NYCC, I did still manage to take in the major attractions, while taking a plethora of photographs. My photo assignments included two photoshoots featuring Adrianne Curry and Tera Patrick, both of which will be available online soon.

Thursday, the first day of comic con, a more laid back atmosphere is always presented. While the cosplayers can be a bit scarce during day one, I instead took the opportunity to walk around and sample the various toys and video games on exhibit. My days of collecting figurines are long over, and the high prices tags on statues have always kept me away. However, it was still great to marvel at the various works of  art on display. From anime and superhero statues to NYCC exclusive action figures, there was definitely a lot to see.

One of my favorite toy lines present at the show was S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla imports. S.H. MonsterArts set up and amazing display case which featured the popular kaiju destroying a cityscape in a giant monster battle royal. It was quite a site to see. My only disappointment was the absence of a Gigan toy. I'm quite partial towards Gigan as he's my favorite Toho Monster, but come on! Even Minilla (AKA Manya and Minira) had an action figure!

DC Direct showed off their amazing line of Statues which were highlighted by the exclusive Dark Knight Returns: Batman on a Horse. Obviously based on Frank Miller's design, the statue was simply stunning. Other DC statues featured Harley Quinn and the Joker. On the Marvel side, I was wowed by the exclusive Captain America vs. Red Skull statue where it looks like Captain America is about to deliver a deathblow to The Red Skull. While I think the industry is going a bit overboard with their anime interpretation of comicbook superhero's, there was a nice selection of anime statues throughout the convention. Plus, you can always be certain that there's always a plethora of "well endowed" statues and figurines on hand.

Legos were also widely popular at NYCC. There was a random dealer downstairs in the autograph area that was creating fantastic Lego scenes which included a Hall of Justice as well as a Hall of Doom!

On the video game side, DC's Injustice for All Fighting game stole the show. Not only was it produced by the same crew at Warner Bros. that gave us my all-time favorite fighting game, 2011's Mortal Kombat, but it features all of DC's most popular Super Heroes. A demo was available on hand. I didn't get a chance to play, but the game looks amazing. I did get to play the Spartacus fighting game, which looked cool, but felt like it could get repetitive very fast. Also on hand was Capcom's new Devil May Cry (DMC) game. Now Capcom is my least favorite video game publisher, which ironically has created some of my favorite games. While DMC looked hot, almost like an exact copy of Bayonetta, the Dante featured within was a far shadow of the great character we've all come to know. I'm currently replaying the original DMC series, and I think I'll stay with that until the new game makes it to the bargin bin. Another big video game announcement was the Street Fighter x Sanrio crossover. I'm not sure if it'll be an actual video game, but Hello Kitty was on hand promoting merchandise, dressed as Chun Li from Street Fighter Alpha.

Injustice Gods Among Us is highly anticipated

The New Devil May Cry receiving a not-so-warm reception from long time fans

Hello Kitty Chun Li style!

Given all of the grief I've felt over the past 2 weeks, I'm glad I was able to feel inspired to sit down and write this blog. It's served as a good distraction, and I'm continuing to edit photos for the rest of the con. I hope to have another write up with my thoughts on the convention itself real soon. To everyone I couldn't meet up with at NYCC, and you know who you are, we owe each other a photoshoot and I hope we can reschedule sometime soon when things settle down. Until then, visit my Flickr Photostream  and also my Facebook Page for more NYCC coverage and Photographs

Also visit the Words from the Master blog for further New York Comic Con toy coverage.

New York Comic Con 2012 Day 3 Photo Highlights

Day 3 of comic con... I never made it to day 4 for obvious reasons. I think it's time to slowly get some sense of normalcy. I figured I'd distract myself by posting a few photos tonight.

The Ghostbusters vs. The Nestle Quick Bunny.
Probably my favorite photo of the weekend

An amazing homemade Witchblade Cosplay

Diva Deadpool

"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan autographing 2x4s 

Catwoman gets photobombed

Belle and Cinderella. Cinderella created both Costumes.

Tank Girl

The Family that cosplays together... 

The Puppet Master and Red Skull team up! 

Breaking Bad

For Further #NYCC Coverage, view the exclusive interview of  ‏@VampyBitme that was done by @MasterGio w/ @baldwinsaint http://bit.ly/PLaO2Y

Vampy Bit Me

New York Comic Con Day 2 Photo Highlights

Adrianne Curry and Greg Weich for Beyond Comics

King Hippo from Mike Tyson's Punchout gets snagged by Scorpion.
Can't believe someone cosplayed as King Hippo, but he pulled it off!

New York Comic Con 2012 Day 1 Highlights

We've been searching for Chris Hardwick since last years comic con.
 After a year of running jokes, we finally found him. Chris Hardwick really does exist!

Hello Kitty dressed as Street Fighter's Chun Li to promote the new upcoming cross over Video Game!
 I don't know what they're drinking over at Capcom, but this should be interesting 

Alfred E. Wonder Woman! Trapped behind glass!